Silicon Valley

1960s: the real revolutionaries at Fairchild Semiconductor

Watched an impressive, dramatic, informative doc on American Experience about the development of the Silicon Valley from the the 1950s to the early 1970s. Here was the true revolution of the sixties. While the counter-culture thought it was changing the world, and ended up changing music and fashion at best, down the road labs full of bright nerds were developing the micro-processor and creating the digital revolution that has changed the way everybody does everything. Many fascinating individual stories, many cultural consequences. But bad news, too. Politics and power changed in ways quite opposite to the meritocracy being developed at Intel. We haven't gotten to the FADE OUT part yet.